


The World Falls Apart in Just Seven Days

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon, M/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-08
Updated: 2005-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-26 17:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12063276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Seven semi-consecutive days near the end of season 2.





	The World Falls Apart in Just Seven Days

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

**Day 1**

It’s dark inside the loft, but then again it isn’t; there’s a soft glow bouncing off the walls, off the stainless steel appliances and off the boy sitting on the floor. He sees the spread of food Justin has set out and curiosity gets the better of him. Justin explains, uses the word ‘picnic’, and Brian’s stomach turns. 

See, if you plan it right, watch the signs, Brian will do anything for anyone he cares about. Justin seems to have missed the fact that lately those times were becoming fewer and further between. 

“You know that I don’t eat fat or carbs after seven.”

He’ll eat any load of junk any other time of day, but in the true fashion of anyone that has food issues, his eating habits are for shit and his diet plans are warped.

Michael had asked him once if moving from Ohio and leaving all his friends behind had been hard. Brian had wanted ask back, _'What friends?'_ Because no one talks to the chubby poor kid and at thirteen Brian was pushing past ‘pudgy’ and heading toward ‘fat’ faster than his parents could afford. Jack had been disappointed; Brian had neither the shape, nor the desire, to pursue any kind of school sports. Never mind that Brian’s science fair projects always won first place; it wasn’t enough.

He’s never talked about it. Nobody in Pittsburgh knows and he’d like to keep it that way.

In the last two months of the eighth grade Brian had stretched from 5’5” to 5’8” and by the end of the summer and the time of their move he was nearly 5’11” and thin as a rail. Despite the chocolate chocolate chip cakes and bread puddings his mother cranked out his metabolism was suddenly through the roof. 

Now, he feels old, looks tired and thinks his suits seem to being fitting tighter. The words extended to Justin are not only a demand to come out with him happily or shut up and deal; the words are a warning. He’s not saying he’s right, he’s saying that he’s coping. Using the tools he learned way before Justin had ever drawn his first nude male. A year and a half of Justin in his life is not going to change that.

**Day 2**

He hears door slide open and cringes against the echoed sound of it; the steel catching with thunder tones along the track and the rolling slam of it closing make his eardrums ache. He wonders if it would be as hollow if there were something else; a white noise in the background, a high noise in the fore, to compete with it. In the end he knows it still would be, that the door would scream out louder than anything else he could turn on to battle it. 

Lately he goes out by himself and comes back just under the wire. According to the alarm clock they set their days by he’s getting in between 2:54am and 2:58am every morning. He appreciates that; punctuality is a virtue. 

He’ll never admit it but he hates the rules, hates the sharing, hates pretending that this is what he wants. All he’s doing is playing along in order to keep what he needs where it belongs; in his life.

The shower’s on and then it’s off and he feels the other man climb over him to his own side, feels him snuggle up close.

“Good night, Brian.” A slow beat. “I love you.”

Brian feigns sleep and lets the words float away; at least Justin is still coming home on time.

**Day 3**

He could be out. 

He could be out fucking.

He could be out fucking every guy that wants him, but he’s not. He’s here, has been all night.

At ten ‘til three he heaves himself out of bed and shuffles toward the kitchen; his high is coming down and the urge to raid the refrigerator is strong. He stands there in the corner of the darkened kitchen, eating leftover takeout and gulping juice straight from the bottle when he hears him come in. He’s still on time, stepping past him, reeking of sweat and come, which would be fine, but the cologne is too familiar; he’s smelt it before. Brian’s nose twitches as he recognizes it from last night’s clothes; because Justin may shower, but he forgets that Brian’s the one that picks the clothes up from the floor every morning on his way to the bathroom and stuffs them into the hamper.

Justin hasn’t seen him standing there. It’s too quiet, too dark and Brian doesn’t _want_ to be seen, he wants to watch. So he does. He watches Justin’s face, the stain of guilt that shows Brian that this isn’t just about breaking rules. 

It’s about trust. And the lack of it.

**Day 4**

It’s raining. No, fuck that, it’s fucking pouring; it’s the kind of storm that causes flash flood warnings to blink across the TV screen in the middle of your favorite show, the kind makes the electricity flicker and the phones go dead. The best kind.

He’s made himself the perfect 50/50 mix of overly strong coffee and eighteen year aged single malt Irish whiskey. The caffeine’s buzz is fucking with the alcohol’s ability to inebriate him. 

It’s been a long day and he’s so fucking… done. Done being responsible and dedicated, stunning and brilliant. Tired of jumping through hoops and then making it look like he’s the one holding them. He just needed a bump, a dance, a couple of fucks and some deep sleep. 

Actually, he thinks to himself, these are the things he _wanted_ ; the reality is that what he _needed_ was Justin. So, he’s been waiting for Justin. 

It’s nearly a quarter past three and he’s still waiting for Justin.

 

**Day 5**

Justin came home late and Justin overslept, now he’s running behind and Brian won’t be able to drop him off at IFA, but all of his meetings are early today so he offers to pick Justin up from school on his lunch hour. Tells him that he’ll give him a lift to the diner for his shift, maybe stick around and keep him company until the dinner rush starts. He sees the pleased shimmer in Justin’s eyes before it fades away. Justin declines, says he’s already arranged for a ride from a newly out lesbian in his Life Studies class. 

He asks him if he needs a ride home after work, but according to Justin he’s going back to the campus library to do some research on Auguste Rodin. Brian remembers Justin complaining that he had a paper to do on an artist proficient in a medium that he as a student was not.

Justin knows next to nothing about sculpting. 

He also thinks he remembers Justin exhaustingly declaring the paper was finished days ago and mentions that. Justin stutters, claims he’s adding to the assignment for extra credit. If Brian could believe him, if it weren’t such an obvious lie, he’d be proud.

“ _‘To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth’_ ,” Brian quotes.

“What?” Justin voice is high and thin, like Brian has caught him with his hand in the proverbial condom bowl.

“Nothing. Just a highly famous Rodin quote. He said it in German of course, but I went with the translation; my German accent leaves much to be desired.” 

“Oh. Right. Of course.” Justin says absently, “I should finish getting ready if I wanna catch the bus. I’ll see you tonight.”

Brian looks at him sadly and nods, “Take a cab,” he says, leaving money on the counter as he walks out the door.

Rodin was French.

**Day 6**

He begs Brian to let him take a shower and, Christ, Brian wants him to. The mix of stale sweat that isn’t Justin’s, and cheap cologne that is most definitely not Brian’s, hits him as soon as Justin stepped through the loft door; but if he lets Justin bathe, if it’s just Justin that he can smell, then his anger will fade and Brian Kinney has a point to prove.

“I like smelling you, not soap.”

They’ve never kissed like this; it’s never been so brutal or painful, so necessary. He can feel how hard Justin is and would gladly fuck him if he could forget that Justin’s already had his fill today. He slaps Justin’s hands away; this isn’t mutual, this is Brian’s show, Justin’s reins that Brian’s holding. The control. The loss of control. Oddly, what helps fuel Brian on is the absolute most teenage girl thought a grown fag could ever have.

_I can’t believe I let you fuck me._

Because Brian’s view of sex is nearly as twisted as his view of everything else. Jack and Joan fucked up his heart, but the first man that fucked him messed up his head in the worst way. Because a fourteen year old may know his sexuality and may have raging hormones and the desire to learn it all, but he’s still a non-consenting child under the law. And for good reason. Brian knows he was taken advantage of and hates to be reminded of that kind of vulnerability. It left him needy and wanting and he had thought he was in love and then he was alone. Little boys don’t get to keep their married gym teachers; they just end up fucked in the ass.

While Brian’s had his fair share of fun over the last fifteen-odd years; the occasional finger, tongues and toys and such, no one fucks Brian Kinney. It’s not about maintaining a reputation; how could a top judge a bottom, where would a top be without them? But it’s too personal for him to allow it, it might end up meaning something again and he just couldn’t let that happen again. Until Justin.

Well, fuck Justin. He stops, leaves Justin hard and confused on the immaculate floor.

“Go take a shower, you stink.”

 

**Day 7**

Standing in Babylon, seeing the made for television version of Justin’s bashing is making his head swim. He wishes that he could have kissed Justin better the way Rage does for JT, instead of blubbering in a parking lot while fumbling for his cell phone. 

He wants to run away, curl up and cry and block everything out, but he can’t; there’s still so much to do tonight. Instead, he watches Michael walk away and asks Justin about it, takes Justin’s answer and rolls it around in his head. 

He wants to agree with them both. Wants to think that Justin _is_ an asshole, Justin should have been honest, Justin did wrong, he wants to scream about how much it hurt to come home from Chicago to find out Justin had left for Vermont on his dime while he worked to keep the dimes coming in to take care of both of them. But the truth is he can’t leave it all on Justin. It wouldn’t be fair.

So he fucked Rage, fucked himself, let Justin go and prepared himself for the fact that life would be hard until Justin came back.


End file.
